Amid heightened concerns about racial insensitivity, Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker’s campaign first suspended, then fired two campaign workers over a video displayed on social media showing one of them wearing a dark facial cosmetic resembling blackface.

The video appeared last weekend on the Instagram account of Carolyn Mehta, who identifies herself as deputy director of get-out-the-vote efforts for the Pritzker campaign.

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It shows a white person wearing a blue “J.B. and Juliana for Illinois” campaign T-shirt with a dark substance swathed over his face and on portions of his fingers. The word “psycho” appears inside a pink heart on the upper right side of the video.

“The individual in the photo had applied and was wearing a charcoal face mask after work hours on the weekend. A fellow employee took a video and posted it on Instagram,” Pritzker spokeswoman Galia Slayen said in an initial statement.

Initially, Slayen blamed the incident on “poor judgment” and that neither staff member “intended to take part in offensive behavior” and said both had been suspended without pay. But hours later, though Slayen said the image was posted on a private Instagram account, she added, “After further investigation, both staffers have been fired.”

Charcoal face masks are sold as a cleansing method to exfoliate skin and remove dirt from pores. But those using it have an appearance akin to using blackface, a form of theatrical makeup that was used largely by nonblack performers in past decades to portray an African-American but has largely been defined as racist.

The issue of blackface makeup led to the recent controversy involving NBC host Megyn Kelly, whose “Today” show was canceled after remarks she made earlier this week endorsing its use for Halloween “as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

Pritzker’s campaign has been stung by issues involving racial insensitivity, something that affects an important core Democratic constituency of African-Americans who are key to defeating Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Nov. 6.

Earlier this month, a lawsuit was filed by 10 African-American and Latino Pritzker campaign staffers who contended they were subjects of racial harassment and discrimination and sought $7.5 million. The Pritzker campaign has denied the allegations, and several questions have surfaced about the legitimacy of issues identified in the lawsuit.

In February, before winning the Democratic nomination for governor, Pritzker was forced to embark on an apology tour after the Chicago Tribune released a secretly recorded federal government wiretap that was part of the corruption investigation of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is now in prison. The wiretap involved a replacement for then-President-elect Barack Obama for his U.S. Senate seat.

During the conversation, Pritzker pitches Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White as a replacement for Obama. White, Pritzker says, would take care of the “African-American thing” and would be the “least offensive” of the potential black candidates Blagojevich was considering. Pritzker also called former state Senate President Emil Jones “crass” and former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. “a nightmare.”